Choices
by Morgane
Summary: “Let the Dementors come, let them have all my days in the sun, let them have the easy laughter and the breathtaking pure colour of the sky. The nights are still mine“ In the darkness of Azkaban, Bellatrix Lestrange reflects (mentions femmeslash


Not that it isn´t kind of obvious, but for the record: Harry Potter isn´t mine

Like always, I want to remind you that I am no native speaker - grammar and spelling mistakes might lay ahead. If you feel like pointing them out to me, I am very grateful. If you choose to ignore them, it´s okay for me, too. If you flame me because of them, you are not worth my attention (flame me for the plot, the characterisations and other things that are actually my fault, okay ^^). And if you don´t like Blackcest (Narcissa/Bellatrix in this case) better don´t read it.

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**Choices **

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_One need not be a Chamber -  to be Haunted -  _

_One need not be a House - _

_The Brain has Corridors - surpassing_

_Material Place - _

_~ Emily Dickinson_

You forget a lot of things in Azkaban.

I don't know how long I've been like this now, just sitting here in the mind-numbing darkness, not fidgeting or pacing or fluttering my hands like I was so apt to what seems a lifetime ago. In the beginning I used to stroll restlessly around the cell, cursing and screaming and shouting to avoid the dreadful stillness all around me, but gradually, I have given up the fight. Gradually, I have become perfectly still myself.

It's not the talking I miss so much as...being talked to. The places I chose as home have never been quiet; even in sleep there were always some small feet stomping in protest, a low voice rumbling with anger or pleasure and wicked, gleeful giggles all around me. There was always something to assure me that I wasn't alone. 

Now there is nothing.

If Azkaban has taught me one thing, it is the truth of the old adage: The opposite of love is not hatred. It is indifference. 

It is void.

Listening to the footsteps above of all those others who had been thrown into this living hell, something in me has stirred over the years, has becomes sick of Judgement, divine or otherwise. Let the Dementors come, let them have all my days in the sun, let them have the easy laughter and the breathtaking pure colour of the sky. The nights are still mine. The nights with its bloody rain and its overwhelming smell of white jasmine and whirling crimson snow are mine, now and forever.

That which is really important, they cannot take from me.

"Cissa." Spoken into the darkness her name sounds like an invocation, like some sort of blasphemous prayer. "Cissa, sweet sister mine."

And she comes to me, as surely as she has always come when I called her, no matter how reluctantly or hateful at times. She steps into my dreams, all golden locks, dark blue sea storm eyes and a cold smile that could tear you to pieces, and there is some odd consolation in her eternally flawless appearance.

Queen of Winter, crowned with ice.

I've no visual input to update her beauty, but these images of old will persist forever, no matter how often they send the Dementors to my cell. There is no way I will never be able to forget the plush softness of my sister's lips, the smooth skin of her legs, the heat I could always feel long before I touched her or the way she somehow smells of moonlight and ice. The years might pass, but I will always know the beat of her heart, the cool precision of her voice and her laughter, so infrequent that when it came, it always shocked me. Azkaban just takes the happy memories from its prisoners, but loving Narcissa never meant happiness. There was too much pain, too many cruel mind games and too much careless betrayal between us for this. Grave soil and bits of crisp, broken flowers on the ground where we laid down, taste of salt and desire on our skin, yes, but happiness has never been found in our embraces. 

"If you could choose?" she has asked me once, after a particular desperate night of lovemaking.

I didn't have to think about the answer. "I'd choose you."

And so I have done. So I still do. I choose her - the love, the pain, the longing, the bitterness - and my choice becomes the face of my salvation.

Let the Dementors come. That which is really important, they cannot take from me.


End file.
